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On Sunday from 2-4 p.m., Pulitzer Prize winning author Deborah Blum will sign copies of her latest release, The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York. Blum won the Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on a series of articles that resulted in the book,The Monkey Wars, a book on the use of primates in research. After graduating from the Universityof Georgia, Blum began her career as a reporter for The Madisonian in Madison, Ga.
Dog Ear Books is very excited to welcome back one of our favorite local authors Deidre Knight at 4:30 Sunday, March 21st to sign copies of her latest release, Butterfly Tattoo. Come by for wine and refreshments Sunday evening and to chat with Deidre about this and her next upcoming book, Red Demon.
The non-fiction book club will meet at 7 p.m. Monday, March 19th at Pamela Hall’s house.
The book is Karen Armstrong’s the Battle for God, not her book, The History of God, which is what I ordered, got in and sold to several of you this week. Those books may be exchanged for the proper book when it comes in on Wednesday. Very sorry for the mix-up.
The next-to-last book club for the independent film series at the Madison Morgan Cultural Center will be held on Sunday, March 14th at 6 p.m. We’ll be discussing Getting Near to Baby by Audrey Coulombis. The book is a Newberry Honor book from 2000 and we’re encouraging young adults and adolescents to come on their own or with their parents to both the book club and the film, When I Find the Ocean by Tonya Holly, which will by shown, with the filmmaker available for questions Monday, March 15th at 7 p.m.
Hope to see you there.
The newly formed kids book clubs at Dog Ear Books will meet again Friday, March 26th at 6 p.m. The first meeting at the store was great fun and we look forward to having even more kids join in the fun. The elementary-aged group will read The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards and the middle school age group has a choice to read either The Magician by Michael Scott or The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.
More kids are welcome to attend the meetings, though I would appreciate a heads-up by prospective members just to make sure I’ve got enough seating and help on hand mainly. Huge thanks go out to Pamela Hall, Bonnie Hicky and Margaret Thomas for running and organizing this thing.
Any questions about either club just shoot me an email or give me a call at the store.
The regular fiction book club will meet Monday, March 1st at 7 p.m. at the store to discuss the second half of The Best Nonrequired Reading of 2009 after a month off to move the store. Looking forward to putting this one behind us to get back to some regular fiction.
The Great Book Brigade of 2010 is real and is happening this Saturday, Jan. 23rd at 1 p.m. We’re meeting at the current location, 142 Academy St., and forming a line from there to 270 S. Main, a distance of a little over 1,000 feet. I need 200 people to cover the distance. So far we’re looking good on commitments and I think we’re actually going to be able to pull this thing off, but I need all the help I can get. If you can come please try to bring a friend or family member. If you can forward this email around to another group or post the information online, that would be big help also.
The weather is looking good (knock on wood) but rain will cancel the move. Most likely, you will never get the chance to be a part of a community-wide, human chain of books again so take advantage while you can. I plan to memorialize everyone who participates in a series of photographs of the line to hang in the new store.
I’d like to thank everybody for another great year here at Dog Ear Books. I would not be able to do what I do here if you did not make a point to shop with me. If you’re getting this email you’re obviously a very smart, good-looking and well-adjusted person and are aware that you could shop at Wal-Mart or online to buy your books at a savings but because you make the choice to shop with me, I am blessed with having the best job in the world and I want you all to know how much I appreciate that support.
The news, as you may have already heard, is that Dog Ear Books is moving to a new location. I read Christopher Morley’s classic The Haunted Bookshop in November and decided I had to get one of my own. After a great deal of research I’ve found a suitably old (1895) and haunted (former funeral home) house to occupy.
If you’re familiar with Madison, you might remember 270 South Main Street’s previous incarnation as Simply Southern before it closed in 2007. It’s a whole lotta house, but I’ve got a few ideas on how to fill it up. To hit the highlights Dog Ear Books will be:
- – Expanding selection of new and used books.
- – Expanding the coffeeshop side of the store and maybe actually have a few places to sit down and drink it. Related to this the store will revert back to the hours of 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and remain 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. on Sunday.
- – Hunker Downs market is closing down here on Academy St. but will be providing Johnson’s Diary milk, cheese and yogurt as well as their own soup mixes, sauces, jellies and coffee in the expanded coffeeshop/market area of the store.
- – We’ll be offering guitar, bass, drum and piano lessons.
- – Local, handmade arts/crafts/jewelry/cards and stationary.
- – In what my wife calls my quest to become Fred Sanford, we’ll be carrying as much of an odd assortment of interesting and unique “junk” at such time as suitable “junk” becomes available.
There will be more, much more, but those are some of the interesting bits off the top of my head. I will be accepting any and all help that is offered, but there is a vague plan of a Great Book Exodus, possibly Jan. 23rd, which will involve a few hundred people and a couple of hours of time, but it’s by no means definite. More on that as it develops.
Here’s hoping 2010 is great for us all.
With sincerest thanks for all your support,
Jon
The non-fiction book club was a great success and we’ll meet again on Friday, Feb. 19th to discuss Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
In an effort to reach out to those serious-minded folks who read no fiction, Dog Ear Books is beginning a new Non-Fiction book club to begin Friday, January 15th. Topics and the format for book selection are still up in the air and I’d love to hear ideas from anyone interested. You can email me or call me at the store (dogearbooks@gmail.com 706-342-3460) with any questions or suggestions.
To get things going, though, we’re going to read Dave Eggers’ new book,Zeitoun, and we’ll be offering it up at a 30% discount for this inaugural book club meeting.
The book club is very much in the development phase and I’d love to hear feedback or questions from anyone who is interested in attending and has ideas for the format or book suggestions for the club. Let me hear from you if you’re interested!
(Here’s a blurb on the book…)
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. But, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers’s riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun’s roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy—an American who converted to Islam—and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun became possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research—in this case, in the U.S., Spain, and Syria.